Tokyo Day 10 May 29, 2008

Day 10 was a wet day. The rain drops on the roof and surrounding roofs were loud and heavy at 7 am. I m slowly adjusting to the time here and finding myself waking up a little bit later. I also find myself falling asleep a little bit later. Never the less, today, I my agenda was to leave tokyo and prepare for my trip to osaka. The first stop enroute would be in Kamakura. This is a very old town with many many people. It is nestled in the hill right off the coast of southern japan , one hour south of tokyo, just right south of yokohama. As close as it is to the big city, it is another part of japan you won't find in tokyo.






Here the people are rather local and the ocean stares at the community. There is a big surfing community here as well. The swells here are very fickle though, because of it's south facing position, only southern swells from typhoons and tropical storms make their way in. But it is very convenient because of the location and a host of other commerce that happens here. I am staying in inamura part of shonen and I can see the ocean from my host's house. This is like living in a dream.




I always want a place where I can walk to the beach and go surf anytime. Well, today we got wet but it wasn't really surfing. Can't complain though. I am staying at Mikey's Casa. I am here in shonan because of our trip to Greenroom Osaka. Jonas and Mikey are tight friends from junior high school and they are also surfing locals. Life is very good here. All your wants are fulfilled here and there are no needs, if you want it.

Tokyo Day 4 May 23, 2008

(getting the room ready)

My day started at 1.45 this morning. I had a lot of catching up and was busy preparing for the show. Got it together, check out the flicks. Greenroom Festival, here we come! Blue King Brown from Australia was preppin us for tomorrow and made working and setting up that much more easier!! Thank yOU! Sounds so good.


(mikey, taking control)


(Nakameguro Meeting Spot)



(Blue King Brown, Rehersals and Sound Check)

(Natelie and the rythmn section)

(Horns and Percussions)

(YO!! We GOTS A WALL)

(more prepping photos)

Tokyo Day 2 May 21, 2008

Day two began early morning. I ve never been a good one for traveling time zones. Even driving to another time zone, I am always stuck in new york time or wherever time zone I happened to be at the time. I do not really remember the details of this day so let me highlight and abridge. There was a meeting in the evening to discuss the greenroom festival.

(left to right. Yuri Shibuya, Jonas Kaku, Mikey of Dedication, Kumetani Satoshi, Mike Ming)
My partners, Yuri Shibuya and Jonas Kaku, and I thought about how we would like to finalize the action before we get to the festival to prepare for the show. We had two support members, Mikey of Dedication Studios in Kamakura, a long time associate of Jonas Kaku and Kumetani Satoshi of Dooor to nail down the final plans. We discussed our plans at the future location of '!!NEXT!!' show at Uplink Gallery in Shibuya. By the way, there restaurant/cafe is exquisite. Delicious blend of Euro/Asian/Middle Eastern. Please come and Enjoy! After the discussions, we all made our way back to get rest and prepare.
There was a quick trip to shibuya's Tower Records. They were selling our DYZUE Zine and art books!



I had my own personal agenda after the meeting which involved english pubs and futbol!

It so happened, the day after my arrival was the biggest futbol event of the year. It was the World Series of Futbol, as the European Clubs all competed to have the title of .. 2008 Champions. It happens that in this particular year, it was Manchester United vs Chelsea, two english teams. The first kick was scheduled for 3.45 am! Yikes! I went to bed and set my alarm for 3.15. Of course being jet lagged, waking up was not a problem. I was later to find out, the problem was a lack of standing room at the premier futbol pub in ebisu.



They even charged ¥1,500 including drinks but it was still too crowded. They were nice enough to suggest a different pub to go to though, and it was a short jog away. I was 4 minutes from kick off and all of a sudden, I got strange futbol fever and found myself running in a general direction to find a british pub somewhere in some building near the ebisu station on the 5th floor.


My heightened futbol awareness led me right to where I had to be, just in time to see the players lining up on the field and getting into position.
Unfortunately, this pub was not as crowded as the other pub. What I wanted was Futbol Fever and guys going nuts! But at least there was a place for me to watch the game. I ve never bent over backwards for futbol but well, I was not in my city any more. 3 hours later, as any news caster will tell you, Manchester beat Chelsea in a double overime, double penalty kick battle. Both teams played marvelously. Although it did feel like some of the referee's calls were a little bit questionable. I returned back to Footnik to see how the audience was and true to any sport lovers form, there was cheering, merrymaking and crying.


The fans wearing the chelsea blues were teary eyed and heads hung low.

(or just passed out from the booze)
The Manchester fans were very loud for 6.45 in the morning, kinda hecking the Chelsea Guys. Intense.



(hooligans?)